1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to storage, retrieval, and display of graphical information, and more specifically to such storage, retrieval, and display of such information in connection with identification of specimens in public marine aquariums.
2. Description Relative to the Prior Art
This invention is intended to be used in large-scale public marine aquariums, such as the Boston Aquarium, Sea World of Orlando, Fla., the Seaquarium of Miami, Fla., etc. The invention has the object of providing information about specimens in the aquarium, such as the name, habitat, size, habits, diet, history, and other such information, hereinafter referred to as demographic information., in an improved and interactive environment. The intended audience for this invention is the visiting public attending the aquarium.
Currently this type of information is commonly provided in limited form by means of displays comprising posters, signs, and the like located in some proximity to the specimen to which the display relates. Often the display has the picture of a specimen, such as a fish, so that the visitor can attempt to identify the specimen by its likeness in the display. The display also may have a certain amount of statistical data about the specimen. However, the current systems of this type have a number of drawbacks:
1. The specimens in the aquarium often appear very different from the pictures in the display; PA1 2. The number of such displays in a particular area are limited by the space available for such displays; PA1 3. As new specimens are added or removed (or expire), the displays need to be constantly updated; PA1 4. These display systems are often underutilized through lack of interest, difficulty in seeing the displays when the aquarium is crowded, and the requirement of reading long paragraphs of text.
A desired improvement in the prior art is the use of graphic techniques to identify particular specimens, including fish, invertebrates, etc., by first capturing a graphic image of the specimen as it appears in the aquarium, next identifying the specimen by comparing its image to a library of such images stored on the system, and then, upon identification, providing other information associated with the specimen, both graphic, textual, sonic, and otherwise, to the viewer.
To provide such a system requires the use of a number of different technologies, including graphic identification of the specimen images. A number of recent improvements in the technology provide assistance in this graphic identification requirement. In particular, the Face Recognition Machine described by Lambert in U.S. Pat. No. 5,012,522, describes a technology which may be helpful in this regard. However, the nature of the marine specimens to be so identified have characteristics which make other means of graphic identification more appropriate than the face recognition system of the Lambert patent. The variation in human faces is not very great compared to the variation in the shapes, sizes, colors, and patterns found in the marine aquarium. Thus other means of graphic identification, utilizing colors, patterns, size variations, etc., are used in the current invention.
The current invention solves most of problems described above. One or two electronic display screens, such as VDT or computer monitors, replace the multiplicity of display signs currently used. The information is conveyed to the visitors either visually, through text and pictures, through sound, or a combination of the two. And because the system utilizes an aquarium-wide network with a single database, the updating of images and information is done at a single location out of the way of the visitors and the aquarium tanks and viewing areas. This updating may be done at the convenience of the personnel doing the updating, since it does not interfere in any way with the visitors who may be viewing the displays being updated.